1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to game darts utilized with dartboards and, more particularly, to game darts having a flight section, or portion of a flight section, retractable relative to the body section to minimize bounce-outs and/or deflections of subsequently thrown darts striking the flight section of a previously thrown dart embedded in the dartboard. Preferably, the flight will be rotatable relative to the body section to further minimize bounce-outs and/or deflections of subsequently thrown darts striking the flights of a previously thrown dart embedded in the dartboard.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The game of darts is played as a competitive contest throughout the world. Many players are quite skilled in throwing a dart at a designated or desired location on a dartboard. The dartboards employed by serious players of the game incorporate a plurality of metal ribs to define target patterns for the board, and many games of darts require the participants to hit within predetermined target areas whose boundaries are defined by the metal ribs. As such, the ribs are fabricated from steel wire of a diameter between one and two or more millimeters. As will be described, the total area covered by these ribs is a considerable portion of the board area. Hence, players often hit a metal rib with the dart point. This often causes the dart to bounce off the board and, hence, the player receives no score. It is also determined that the better the player is, the more bounce-off he/she will experience due to the object and formats of various dart contests or games.
Various anti-bounce-off or anti-bounce-back game darts are known in the prior art. Previously, these included two general types of game darts: darts utilizing point sections axially movably mounted in the body sections (as seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,109,915; 4,181,303 and 4,230,322, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference) and darts utilizing point sections resiliently pivotably mounted in body sections (as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,101,126, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference).
More recently, a third type of anti-bounce-back game dart was introduced, utilizing point sections mounted for simultaneous axial and rotational movement relative to the body sections. Anti-bounce-back game darts of this type are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,596,393; 4,842,285 and 5,419,567, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
While the prior art anti-bounce-back game darts are effective to minimize or prevent bounce-outs due to striking wires or staples on the dartboard, they were not totally satisfactory to prevent or minimize deflections or bounce-outs due to striking flight sections of previously thrown darts embedded in the target area of the dartboard.